Quarantine And The People Of God

It would be too strong to say I hate digital church. It’s not that I hate it, I am grateful for the technology and the sliver of connectedness it affords us in this socially distanced world of coronavirus. But still, I have seen the real thing, the body of Christ assembled in varying numbers singing their hearts out. I’ve looked through my own tears upon people that I love and pastor as I proclaim to them the hope they have. I have tried to concentrate on one single conversation in a bustling lobby after a gathering, feeling the potential energy and harmony as the body of Christ is sent out into the world to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to go be present, to go inhabit, to go incarnate.

And now. Now, I stare into a camera with no understanding of how my words are landing—though to be fair, I get about the same reaction to my jokes. Now, I end the service not by sending the people as the blessed ambassadors of resurrection hope into a world teeming with stories to be written, the Spirit of God hovering over us as it hovered over the young, unformed oceans. No, now I tell them, stay home.

To be the church right now, a socially distanced virtual body, is antithetical to everything that I have ever known or loved about church. The early Christians were known for their presence in plagues. In the first centuries of the church, several plagues afflicted the Roman Empire and the church responded by staying, binding the wounds of the ailing, and embodying the presence of Jesus often at the cost of their lives^[1]Bishop Dionysius, 3rd century bishop of Alexandria reports: Most of our brother-Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of … Continue reading. There were priests during the Bubonic plague that administered last rites knowing that it would lead to their own final confessions ^[2]In The Great Mortality, John Kelly says that the mortality for priests during The Black Death was “42 to 45 percent” (p.224), which is higher than the overall mortality rates seem to be for the … Continue reading But this, this we are told is different. In this moment, we are told that the best way to love our neighbors is to withdraw. How can there be a body of Christ without a people to embody it?

What might God be up to?

The People Of God Quarantined

As I survey the story of the Scriptures, it’s astonishing to see how the most profound moves of God often happen as a result of the people of God being in a sense, quarantined, locked away. Bear with me, I really want this to not read like one of those cheesy posters you see in a Sunday school classroom.

Old Testament

Noah is adrift in an arc, Isaac is bound to the altar, Joseph is imprisoned, Moses wanders a wilderness alight with a blazing bush, the Israelites place blood over their doors, Caleb crouches as he surveils the land, David hides in a cave from his pursuers, Elijah goes to Mt. Horeb, Jonah and his message of scandalous mercy is swallowed whole by a giant fish, Daniel is thrust into a den of lions, his friends are locked in a blazing furnace.

The word of God goes dormant for some four-hundred years before the word that brought the world to life sings out again.

Jesus

Jesus grows in his mother’s womb for nine months, is born to a no-name family in a backwater town, he flees to Egypt as a refugee, spends 30 years in obscurity, is driven to the wilderness to wrestle with his own desires and with Satan, John the Baptist is imprisoned and executed, Lazarus is bound in grave clothes, Jesus locks himself away in an upper room on the last week of his life, and then retreats for one last prayer time in the garden. And then, seemingly, the ultimate closed door.

Jesus is crucified, the anguish of human sin carried upon his shoulders. The tomb is sealed.

And in the depths of that darkness, the perfect love of God breaks every power of sin and death, the Spirit speaks a new, fresh word, life dawns anew under the reign of King Jesus.

New Testament

And even still in the afterglow of that resurrection light, the people of God are locked in a room waiting in fear and uncertainty, God breaks in and pours out his Spirit. John and Peter are imprisoned, Stephen is stoned to death, Saul is blinded until the healing touch comes from Ananias, Paul is shipwrecked, his letters are passed through prison bars, and John the revelator is exiled on Patmos.

To be locked away, hidden, fleeing, to have nothing to rely upon but the presence and power of God is a part of the operating system of the kingdom of God. Out of these moments flow promise, salvation, a renewed sense of God being near, and ultimately resurrection.

Wait On The Lord

So what might God be up to in these moments as the church doors are locked, the body of Christ’s hands and feet are replaced by one’s and zero’s, and much is being lost? The truth is, I have no idea. But if the story of Scripture tells us anything it’s that the kingdom comes in seed form, that which grows and provides life for the world is cultivated by being buried in the ground. What will bloom, what will blossom? Life. Grace. Promise. And yes, resurrection, a new beginning, a new heart, and a new body, right here in this world.

Psalm 27vv13-14 has been my prayer and it captures this beautifully. We long to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (v.13), right here on these streets, in these bodies, in our time and place. And the way, in this moment is as it has been in so many of the pivotal moments throughout the story of God and his people: wait on the Lord, Take courage, and wait with hope (v. 14).

What choice do we have? Locked away, quarantined, and isolated, it feels like the world has come to an end. But we are an Easter people. It’s dark now, and how great the darkness. But dawn is coming, and how much greater will that light shine. And so now, we wait.